


Indulge Me

by 27dragons, tisfan



Series: Tales from the Communal Kitchen (the ex-assassins files) [23]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Compromise, M/M, Phobias, Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Tony Has Issues, Tony Needs a Hug, learning to adult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 13:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13858326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Bucky has trouble expressing his wants, until he doesn't.Tony has trouble saying no. Until he doesn't.





	Indulge Me

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine Tony has been in the habit of enthusiastically indulging Bucky anytime Bucky actually chooses something. But Bucky has gotten too used to it, and is sort of riding roughshod over Tony now. (Not maliciously, just thoughtlessly.) Tony of course has no idea how to talk about the issue and so has been just going with it and letting it build and build. Finally a(nother?) major boundary is crossed and Bucky realizes what's been happening. Cue amends/compromises for a happy ending?
> 
> \-- for Midnightwhispers12
> 
>  
> 
> For readers of the Kitchen AU, this story takes place in the gap between Chapters 33 and 34 of Winter Is Coming (so after the stuff with Madam Hydra, but before Bucky does his command words reset)  
> For non-kitchen readers: Bucky and Tony are together, they went through some trauma, and Bucky is still not quite right in the head.

  
Bucky was Bucky again, and not the Winter Soldier, thank god for small mercies. Seeing Bucky triggered -- and then being forced to trigger him again in order to win him back -- it had been one of the worst experiences of Tony’s life.

And Tony had quite a few terrible experiences to choose from.

It had been even worse for Bucky, of course, and it was showing. Even back to himself, he was quiet and withdrawn. And it didn’t take long for Tony to realize that he was falling back into the habit of letting others -- especially Tony -- tell him what to do.

Bucky had noticed it, too; Tony could see him struggling with it. There wasn’t much Tony could do to help, aside from watch his own phrasing and try to be supportive of Bucky’s efforts to fight those ingrained instincts. And to reward assertions of Bucky’s own preferences over Tony’s.

It had started small -- Tony said, “How do you feel about Chinese for dinner?” and Bucky had visibly braced himself before he responded, “Nah, I’d rather have Italian tonight.”

Tony had been craving eggrolls, but supporting Bucky’s fragile independence was infinitely more important. He could have eggrolls any time. So Tony had swooped in on his boyfriend and kissed him breathless. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

And so it went.

It wasn’t like it was hard. Simple things. Food choices -- and when had Tony ever really cared about food, except as fuel, so switching from Mexican to Indian wasn’t too much of a big deal. Or movies; and after Bucky had watched enough modern cinema to have developed a taste in movies at all -- aside from just watching with all the discernment of a four-year-old -- they were mostly compatible in that direction.

Bucky liked science fiction, the more cerebral and speculative, the better. He scoffed at the original _Star Trek_ , but devoured _Jupiter Ascending_ like it was Oscar worthy. Bucky might have had bad taste, there, but hey, it was just a movie. Tony had sat through worse. Really, he had. He was sure of it. Maybe. But it was okay, they couldn’t agree on _every_ movie they watched.

The worst part about it was on the rare occasion where Tony argued (because he was Tony and he always argued; it was in his very nature to be contrary). When Tony pushed back, Bucky would _flinch_ , like he expected Tony to hit him. Or spew a mouthful of hateful words at him. Bucky recovered, quick enough, usually with a shake of his head and a ready smile, and sometimes with a kiss, but Tony noticed he was always… just a little less himself, after. For a while.

So Tony tried to argue less. With Bucky, anyway. Nothing was important enough to see Bucky cringe like that, even for an instant, to have to remember Bucky’s life held in his hands. And really, Bucky asked for so little, and he was so loving and generous with Tony... Relationships were about compromise, right?

Pepper would be proud of how he’d grown.

So what if Bucky wanted to take the Tesla when they went out, instead of Tony’s favorite Audi?

It wasn’t like it was any trouble. It wasn’t like Tony didn’t _like_ the Tesla, too.

Okay, Tony did get in trouble the time that Bucky had wanted to stay in bed and cuddle, and Tony had missed an early investors meeting. Pepper had been _livid_. “I didn’t forget,” Tony protested when she paused to draw a breath. “I just lost track of time, a little. Bucky wanted a little extra cuddling this morning, and you know he’s been under the weather lately.”

“Tony, your boyfriend is older than you and me and Jim put together,” Pepper snapped, her eyes flashing dangerously. “He is grown up enough to be left to his own devices, whereas the Japanese Prime Minister wanted some _personal_ reassurances that integrating Stark Technologies for the majority of their public utilities coordination was going to go smoothly. Reassurances that  cannot give him, because I am a woman.” This was even more dangerous, although Tony would like to point out that certain disagreeable sexism issues in other countries were entirely outside of his wheelhouse. “Japan has a population density of three hundred and fifty per square mile; that’s a lot of people to be without power if these new grids can’t hold up to the strain!”

“I promise I will go and see him at the embassy before his trip is over,” Tony swore. “Seriously, I didn’t mean to miss it, I just...” He trailed off, and held up his hands helplessly. “Come on, Pep; you know me better than that. You know I didn’t mean it.”

“I understand that you are indulging your boyfriend, and I’m very happy for you that you seem to have learned _something_ about relationships,” Pepper said, and she was gritting her teeth in a way that suggested _happy_ was the least of her emotions at this particular point in time. “However, you have more than one relationship. Friends, and co-workers, and a corporation. Balance, Tony.” She sighed at his particularly hangdog look. “Stop giving me the Bambi eyes. I’ll send him a fruit basket. But you’d better get out there. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Absolutely, I promise.”

When Tony came back from his visit with the Japanese Prime Minister, he found Bucky hunched over a computer terminal, feverishly comparing... climbing tools? “Hey, babe. What’s cooking?”

Bucky looked up, giving Tony a wide, brilliant smile. “Tony, hi,” he said. “Missed you.” He reached out and tugged Tony into his lap. “Was watchin’ some television while you were gone. Documentary on the Discovery channel. Kinda reminded me a bit -- well, minus the orcs and trolls -- of that movie, what was it? With the little hobbits, and the ring? That. Yeah. And you know, there’s a spot, Voronja, out in Georgia -- the slavic Georgia, not the state. I was there once, for a mission, but I thought it’d be nice to see when I’m in my right mind. Deepest cave on the planet, they say.”

Well, that sounded moderately horrible. Tony had pretty much avoided caves since the whole Afghanistan kidnapping incident. But far be it from him to discourage another’s fun. “Yeah? You should do that,” he agreed. “Sounds like a heck of a trip.”

“Yeah?” Bucky snuggled up against him, rubbing his chin on Tony’s back. “It’d be fun, right? When do you think we might be able t’ get away for a bit?”

“...We?” Oh god, Bucky wasn’t thinking that they’d _both_ go, was he? “You mean, _we_ , we?”

“No, me an’ Steve,” Bucky said, rolling his eyes. “Of course, we. Us. You an’ me. Like, a vacation.”

“A vacation. In Georgia,” Tony repeated. “In a cave.”

Bucky made an amused little noise. “Legally, I think I’m still considered a Russian citizen.” That had to be a joke, Bucky hadn’t been considered a legal anything for most of seventy years. He hadn’t existed, officially, on any country’s census.

“I don’t know,” Tony hedged. “This thing with Japan has Pepper wound pretty tight. Might be a while before I can get away.”

“Oh, yeah, okay,” Bucky said. He swiped the screen with his right hand, spinning the menu options away. “It… it can wait. Cave’s not going anywhere.”

Damn it, he sounded so disappointed. So dejected. Tony scrubbed his hand over his face. “Give me a couple of days,” he said, “and I’ll talk to Pepper, see what we can arrange. Maybe we can make it a stopover on the way to Japan or something.” He’d never been any good at denying Bucky anything.

“Great,” Bucky said, and he sounded really pleased. “You know, there’s so much I remember from then, an’ ain’t very much of it good. I’d like to show you one of the few things I remember that was pretty.” He nuzzled at Tony’s neck. “You’re th’ best.”

And now Tony would have to be the world’s biggest heel to deny him.

Tony kissed Bucky and resigned himself to a cave. And a round or three of nightmares.

***

Bucky had ended up on the far side of the bed again. Tony sometimes called it the continental drift, where both of them pushed away and there was a huge swath of empty bed between them. It didn’t happen too often; the room temperatures were usually quite cool and Bucky put out a lot of body heat, which meant Tony was often curled up on one side or the other.

Absently, Bucky put out his hand and started patting around for his boyfriend.

There wasn’t even a Tony-shaped divot in the bed. The memory foam had cooled enough to be smooth and flat.

Bucky opened his eyes. A distinct lack of Tony in the room. He listened. No Tony in the penthouse, actually. Huh. Bucky was only a particularly deep sleeper in the first couple hours after he fell asleep. After that, Tony shifting around to get out of bed would have woken him, at least enough to remember Tony leaving. Sometimes he got an idea in the middle of the night and had to go to the workshop.

“Hey, J,” Bucky said. “Tony down in the ‘shop?”

“He is, sir,” JARVIS said. “I believe he woke early and did not wish to disturb your rest.” There was a brief pause, as if JARVIS was considering. “If I might, sir, a word?”

Bucky flashed a grin, knowing JARVIS would see it wherever he was. “You need me to go rescue him from himself?” Tony was prone to forgetting to eat, sleep, drink, sometimes forgot even to go to the bathroom unless he was reminded, and over the years, he’d gotten remarkably good at ignoring JARVIS’s mild suggestions that his creator might, actually, be human and need to tend to his meat body.

“Presently,” JARVIS agreed. “In the interest of his continued good health, however, I wish to offer something of a trend analysis, if I might be so bold.”

“Have you, a day in your existence, ever been less than assertive?” Bucky loved the AI, considered JARVIS nearly as much of the family as Tony did. Sassy, intelligent, and possessing a certain dry wit, and unimaginable depth of compassion for those humans he took under his wing -- so to speak.

“Where it pertains to Mr. Stark’s wellbeing, certainly not,” JARVIS said. “I have noted a marked increase in restless nights over the last ten days, and a significant uptick in fear response waking patterns indicative of nightmares, in the last four. Analysis suggests that the upswing began when plans were laid for your upcoming trip.”

“Yeah? That Japan thing got him in a right lather? I know Miss Potts’s been givin’ him a bit of a hard time, but--” Bucky shrugged. He didn’t know. Business really wasn’t his area of expertise, except, perhaps, in sabotage. He wouldn’t have thought that would get Tony wound up, though. From all indications, the Prime Minister had been delighted with the system’s promised efficiency, and Tony almost never made technological promises he couldn’t deliver on.  

“Mr. Stark has been to Japan on numerous occasions. It has never caused this significant a deviation,” JARVIS said. “I believe the issue may be with some plans for your stop in Georgia. Specifically, your foray into spelunking.”

The cave was beautiful, Bucky remembered that clearly, remembered being struck by the natural power of the place, even in the midst of what had been a particularly tricky mission -- removing and relocating a valuable geologist whose hobby had been the exploration of caverns -- without alerting anyone as to when or where he’d gone missing.

He blinked. “Wait, Tony’s havin’ nightmares about spelunking?”

“That is my speculation, yes. Have you reviewed the file on Mr. Stark’s kidnapping, some years past?”

“The… Ten Rings thing, or somethin’ further back?” Bucky knew that Tony had spend an inordinate amount of time being kidnapped or held for ransom when he was a child, all the way up through his college years. It was kinda disgusting, really, that Howard had never been able to take better care of his own kid.

“That is the incident to which I refer, yes.” JARVIS had the tone of a very patient teacher with a particularly slow child. “Are you familiar with it?”

Bucky was familiar with a lot of Tony’s life. JARVIS even knew that, had accessed all the Hydra files Bucky had liberated about Tony Stark. The Afghanistan incident, that he only had passing knowledge of; the Ten Rings hadn’t exactly filmed their brutalities, most of the time. He’d seen a few pictures, the original ransom demand, the remains of the terrorist camp after Tony had destroyed it.

“He, uh. Got hurt, bad. Took shrapnel in the chest. Would have died, except some scientist put a damn electromagnet in his chest, to keep the pieces from tearing his heart open,” Bucky said. That much was pretty common knowledge. Everything Bucky knew after that was… well, after. When Tony got back to the States and started on the path that would eventually lead him to become Iron Man. “They, uh. Wanted him to build them a bomb and tortured him, when he refused.” Bucky shuddered, not liking to think of Tony, how alone he must have felt, without even the damnable peace of cryo, the numbness of missions, to ease the agony.

“Indeed. The Ten Rings cell that held him made their camp, at least partially, within a system of caves in the mountains. He and his fellow prisoner were kept in one of the deepest of these caves, to reduce the risk of their escape.”

Bucky took the force of that like one of Tony’s old missiles. Oh.

“Well,” Bucky said, slowly, “don’t I feel remarkably _stupid_.” And JARVIS had talked him through it like a toddler, forcing Bucky to come to certain unpleasant conclusions, not only about the cave, but about himself. “I… uh. Thank you for bringin’ this to my attention. I’ll… I should go talk to him, yeah?”

“I think that would be prudent,” JARVIS agreed primly.

It didn’t take him particularly long to get to the workshop, especially since he took the stairs. He’d long since proven than he was faster than the elevator, a fact that annoyed Clint Barton to no end.

Given that JARVIS knew he was on his way, Bucky found it more than a little annoying when the door didn’t open to his print. Bucky scowled, then knocked on the damn door.

Tony was clearly visible, working at his usual station. He glanced up at the knock and waved Bucky in. He made a face and said something, possibly to JARVIS, because the door clicked softly as it unlatched and opened.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Tony said as Bucky came in. “Is it morning already?”

“‘Bout half past seven,” Bucky told him, as if Tony couldn’t check the time. “I… hey.” He crossed the room and tipped Tony’s chin up, studying his face. A few days worth of stubble had filled in the spaces around his normally fastidiously cultivated facial hair, and the circles under his eyes were probably visible from the moon. “Honey? Were you… were you gonna tell me?”

“Tell you -- what? That I had a few bad dreams? It happens to all of us now and then, nothing to do about it.”

“Yeah, I know that, we all get ‘em,” Bucky said. That much was true; there wasn’t a single member of the Avengers that didn’t suffer from the occasional sleepless night. He chewed his lip. “Old wives tale.. When you have a bad dream, you tell someone about it, share it. And then, wham, you never have it again. Wanna tell me?”

Tony shrugged, looked away. “Not much to it,” he said. “Stuck in Afghanistan again, only this time I can’t find my way out. Wind up cornered, out of ammo, power drained.” He held a breath, and let it all out in a gust. “Usually manage to wake up before they start shooting.”

_Usually._

Bucky deposited a kiss on Tony’s curls, sticking up in all directions as if he’d been shoving his oily hands through them. He probably had, knowing Tony.

“Huh,” Bucky said. “Sounds terrible. I’m glad you’re okay, baby. I get, you know I get ‘em, stupid nightmares. You know I can’t sit in th’ recliners, ‘cause being tipped back like that just gets me spun up.”

Tony nodded. “I know,” he said, more steadily. “I know that’s a problem. That’s why we just have a bench down here, when I’m working on your arm. I couldn’t do that to you.”

Bucky took a deep breath, pulled Tony in close. “So… uh. Why do you think I’d wanna do that to you?”

“What? No, of course you wouldn’t!” Tony sounded genuinely offended on Bucky’s behalf. “Why would you think that?”

Bucky had to tread very carefully; Tony was prone to getting his back up, doubling-down, if he thought he had to prove something. “There are other things to do, in Georgia,” Bucky said. “Ruins, and some pretty little traditional villages, an’ all kinds of food shops. Wine tours. If you still want to go. I could even go do the caves myself, just for an afternoon.”

“Oh.” Tony sighed. “That’s not the same, honey. If you want me to go with you -- you said you wanted to show it to me.”

“And I do,” Bucky said, because he was pretty sure that it was important not to lie, even to spare Tony’s feelings. “I _want_ a lot of things. But one thing I want, more than anything else? Is for you to be happy and comfortable. Baby, if this thing isn’t going to make you happy, then I don’t need it. That’s… that’s okay.”

Tony shook his head. “I can’t just say no for every little thing you want just because it’s not what I want,” he said. “That’s not fair.”

“You’re not sayin’ no to everything little--”

Oh. Oh, god.

“--Tony, you’re not saying no to _anything_. Like, _ever_.” Guilt shook Bucky all the way down to his core. “What the hell, Tony?” He pushed back a bit, so he could look down at Tony’s face, caught the way Tony’s eyes slid away from his gaze. “Tony?”

“I can’t,” Tony said, eyes fixed firmly on the wall. “I can’t say-- I mean, I _can_ , obviously, I know I can, but you get so... it’s like you think I’m going to hurt you for picking the wrong thing, I can’t take it. I can’t do that to you.”

The noise that came out of Bucky’s throat was practically unrecognizable as a word, a half-protest, half strangled groan. “Oh.” Bucky was a little wobbly in the knees, like a newborn baby deer. “Can… come here, come here, let’s--” Bucky teetered backward and then shuffled, moving them over to the cot where he could sit down, heavily. “I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?” Tony folded down next to him. “That you were flinching? I’m not surprised, it’s just... something in your eyes, the way you hold your shoulders.”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, I c’n-- I see where it’s comin’ from. It’s _hard_ , asserting myself. I…” Bucky’s face and neck heated and he ducked his chin so he didn’t have to look at Tony. “... you know, have to work my way up to it. Assets don’t have opinions. An’ I know, baby, I know. You’re tryin’ to make it easier for me. I appreciate it, every bit of it, even if I didn’t quite notice at th’ time. But… Tony, we can’t go on like this, not either of us.”

“I don’t mind,” Tony said stubbornly. “Helping you is so much more important than anything else.”

“Doesn’t seem very fair to you,” Bucky said. “An’ long run, I don’t think it’s very fair to me, either. How’m I s’posed to get better at a thing, if I don’t get any practice. Tony, listen to me, please? Just… I swear, I don’t know why you think you deserve so much _less_ than I do. We’re partners, right?”

“Of course.” Tony looked up at that, eyes searching Bucky’s face. “I am listening, I just -- I’m trying to help you practice _wanting_ things, speaking up for yourself, having your own opinions. That’s important, honey.”

“I’m not _disagreeing_ with you,” Bucky said, trying to untangle the situation. “I’m sayin’ it’s more than yes/no. It… it’s not that simple, an’ I’m sorry it took me so long t’ see that it wasn’t that simple. I ain’t been doing right by you, baby. My stupid messed up brain. So… hey, hey, stop lookin’ all sad like that, we’re gonna fix it, right, because that’s what adult people do when they’re in a relationship, okay. Okay?”

“Okay,” Tony agreed, though he still looked kind of sad. “I don’t know how, though. I want to help you. I _like_ helping you.”

Bucky smiled. “I like you helping me, too, honey. I like doing things with you, I like… all of this. What I don’t like, is you _sacrificing_ your comfort for me. Okay? You gotta tell me these things, so that I know. Baby, I’d have never asked you t’ suffer, jus’ for me to have a lark.”

“I’m not--” Tony bit down on the lie, and huffed. “Yeah, okay. I... don’t want to go in any caves. That’s not... not my idea of fun.”

“Okay, Tony,” Bucky told him, and if he felt that vague tinge of unease, that sense of doom, he suppressed it as well as he could. It wasn’t easy, but that’s what they were doing, right. Compromise. It was a thing. Bucky could feel uncomfortable for a few minutes, so Tony wouldn’t have to feel uncomfortable for several days leading up to, and probably after, and certainly _during_. “Then we don’t have to. So, do you still wanna go to Georgia, or we can jus’ skip that an’ do vacation some other time, when we’ve got some time t’ think of something we _both_ want to do?”

“I already wangled the time off out of Pepper,” Tony pointed out. “I’m not about to admit to her that we could’ve scheduled the Japan meeting earlier. We can still take a vacation together, like you said. Do some of that other stuff you mentioned.”

“Okay, Tony,” Bucky said. “We’ll do that. Tourist stuff. See all the places where I’ve been an’ didn’t notice what I was lookin’ at. I like that idea. Honest.” He nuzzled into Tony’s hair, breathing in his scent. “I like spendin’ time with you. That’s what’s most important, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, curling in closer. “Yeah, that part... That, I knew.”

“So…” Bucky said, still talking into Tony’s hair, “d’ you have somehin’ down here you need or want t’ be doin’?” Maybe they could make this work out, if Bucky knew what the expectations were, or the demands on Tony’s time, or his well being. Then he wouldn’t have to worry, when he asked for something, if he was being unreasonable. And Tony wouldn’t have to be concerned that Bucky was flinching, when he said no.

Tony looked around at his shop. “Not really,” he said. “I was just... puttering, so I didn’t wake you up.”

Bucky traced a little circle on the back of Tony’s neck, then rubbed with his thumb, soothing away tension. “I’m awake,” he pointed out, “if you _wanted_ t’ come upstairs an’ indulge me in some cuddling?”

Tony appeared to give that some thought. “I think I have time for that,” he said, his mouth ticking up into a little teasing smirk. “I’d like that.”


End file.
